Alek had spent the entire afternoon lying on her bed, thinking about the book. The sun was kissing the horizon and, the room became darker but, Alek was still lost in her thought when Bia opened the room.
Bia was at her friend's house and when she came back to the house, the house was quiet. She went to their room and found Alek not much changed position from when she left her.
"So, what were you doing the whole afternoon? Looks like you've not changed your position that much since I left you." Bia walked towards her bed while talking.
Alek didn't even notice her sister entering the room talking.
Bia looked back at her sister, who didn't reply to her. "Ummm, excuse me." She went to Alek's side and looked into her sister's eyes.
"Waaaahhhhh!!" Alek woke up from her daydream and screamed. But when she jumped, she hit Bia's nose with her forehead.
"Ouch!" Alek rubbed her forehead.
"Oww!" Bia held her aching nose.
They both exclaimed at the same time.
"I think you have something else to say." Bia threw an angry look at Alek.
"Sorry! You scared me! You can't just come up to people like that!" Alek also threw an angry look at her sister.
"Argh," Bia sighed. "Whatever. What were you doing? Dozing off like that?"
"I was just thinking." Alek retorted.
And right at the moment, a knock interrupted what Bia was going to say.
"Come in."
"Come in."
They both answered the knock.
It was Kai.
"Are you guys okay? What happened? I heard your screams." Kai only poked out his head from the door as he did hours ago.
"Yeah, we good." Bia told her brother. And Alek nodded.
"Okayy." Kai saw his sisters doing fine and left the room.
Alek and Bia stared at each other when Kai closed the door and left. They looked away eventually and continued doing what they were doing before.
When the sun was half hidden from the sky, there was a knock on the door. "Sweeties, what do you want to eat for dinner?" Panacea asked her daughters from behind the door.
Alek went off her bed, opened the door and told her mother she wanted pot-au-feu. Bia said nothing in particular. Alek and Bia followed their mother to the kitchen to help and they found Kai already in the kitchen.
"I want to eat spaghetti with meatballs." Kai told the females in front of him.
"But Alek already said she wants to eat Pot-au-feu. You two need to do something about that." Panacea pointed at the last born and second born. "I'm definitely not making both."
Alek and Kai looked at each other.
Kai was using his puppy dog eyes towards his sister. He knew Alek was sweet towards him and she wouldn't say no to him when he asked with these eyes. Alek grumbled. Her brother sure knew she couldn't say no and even though she knew he was doing it purposely, she still couldn't say no.
"Fine!" Alek gave up. "We'll eat spaghetti today."
Kai smiled sweetly at his sister. Kai didn't smile that much, so it was rare to see him smiling like an angel. Bia saw what Kai did to Alek and winked at him. He was bad in a good way. Bia then moved towards her brother and whispered.
"Nice one. But don't do it that much. Alek would get immune to it."
Kai nodded and they started helping Panacea.
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They just finished eating the spaghetti with meatballs like Kai asked.
"So dad," Alek looked to her father. "How did you get a day off? I thought there was trouble at work?"
There was a flash of complex emotions in his eyes but it disappeared like it was never there. "The trouble was solved and they gave me a few days off." Robin answered her question. Aware that all the eyes were staring at him.
"Oh, okay. Does that mean we can go out as a family?" Alek asked her father again.
"Do you want to? We can." Robin gave Alek a small smile.
"Can we go tomorrow to the beach?" Alek asked with a grin and big eyes.
"Yeah," Robin looked around the table. "do you want to go to the beach tomorrow?"
"Yes." Kai answered.
"That would be great." Bia answered.
"I would love to but will you be fine to drive again tomorrow? You drove so much today. Maybe the day after tomorrow." Panacea looked at her husband. He must be tired.
"I'll drive!" Alek offered.
"Dame!" Kai exclaimed in Japanese.
"No!" Bia said the same thing in English as Kai at the same time.
"Why?" Alek asked her siblings. "Mom and dad can rest while I'm driving! Isn't that good?"
"Oh, no, no, no! You don't know how horrible your driving skills are!" Bia told her sister who seemed to be unaware.
"Excuse me?" Alek looked at her sister.
"I agree," Kai said. " I would rather stay at home than be in the car you drive."
"Ouch!" Alek looked at her cute brother with disbelief.
"But seriously," Bia talked. "Your driving is something else. I don't wanna die tomorrow, okay? I have a lot of things to do."
"Rude! My driving skills are not that bad, right dad?" Alek whipped her head towards her father who was talking with his wife.
"What?" Robin was listening to Panacea and wasn't hearing what his children were arguing about.
"My driving skills! It's not that bad, right?" Alek's face was now red with anger-ish emotions.
"Uhhh..." Robin looked around for help, but they looked away from him. And finally, he looked at his wife. Panacea gave the 'sorry-but-you-have-to-handle-it-yourself' smile to her poor husband. Robin wanted to reverse time before he talked about going to the beach.
Robin sighed lightly before facing Alek. "Your driving skills have improved compared to the first time you drove."
"See! It's not bad!" Alek talked to her siblings.
who had grim expressions on their faces. The first time Alek drove was when she was seventeen years old. And she almost drove into her sister standing on the sidewalk despite her father giving her instructions. But nowadays, she wouldn't drive into her sister but she needed to pop her upper body out of the window to see if the wheel was straight or not.
And right now, they knew their father didn't mean well when he said she had improved since the first time. Alek's driving skills were still terrible!
"Anyway, why don't you guys let Alek drive for tomorrow? If it's that bad, I'll drive. Maybe she has improved, right?" Panacea finally talked.
"I agree." Alek said, nodding towards her mother.
Panacea threw the look at everyone except Alek. The look was something scary and, they had no choice but to agree to what she said.
"Fine." Bia said.
"Okay." Kai mumbled.
And Robin just nodded his head slightly. When Panacea gets mad, she is scary as hell. He didn't want to get on her nerves.
"That's decided." Panacea clapped her hands happily. "Let's watch a movie tonight. It's too early to sleep and we can spend some family time."
"That sounds awesome!" Alek grinned happily.
"You guys can start watching. I'll wash the dishes." Bia stood up and collected he used utensils and went to the kitchen.
Kai silently stood up and started to wipe the table.
"I'll help Bia. You guys can choose the movie and while waiting." Alek told her parents and went to the kitchen.
"Arigatone." Panacea thanked her kids and grabbed her husband's arms and left into the dining room.
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They watched the movie with a little snack. The movie was a comedy and they all enjoyed it. Alek was sitting on the floor, in between Kai, Bia was sitting alone on a single sofa and Robin and Panacea were cuddling on a two-seat sofa. They all had a fun time and went to their rooms after that.
It had been a while since they had family time together like this except yesterday when they played a board game with every one of the family members.
Panacea had showered before she cooked and Robin had just come out of the shower. She looked at her husband with a worried face. She was still worried about what will happen to Alek when she finally knew. Robin saw Panacea's face and quietly embraced her. Panacea hugged back his bae back and nodded towards herself.
When she finally looked up, Robin kissed her forehead. Then a drop of water from Robin's wet hair dropped on her face and she wiped it with disturbance.
"Would you mind?" Robin asked Panacea with question eyes.
Panacea laughed and went to grab the dryer from the drawer. Meanwhile, Robin waited on the edge of their bed. Panacea sat behind Robin and turned on the dryer. She dried his hair tenderly and slowly with a smile. When she was done, Robin kissed her cheek and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
They have been doing this since they got married and she liked it when Robin was like this. They always did this for each others hair and it was one of Panacea's favourite things to do.